


everything back in place

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, POV Outsider, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-07 23:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12851484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Hank doesn't know why but he feels safe with the two SHIELD agents.Written for the Cousy Rewatch at johnsonandcoulson.com





	everything back in place

“How is your family?” the woman says, first thing, after they have put the intruder in cuffs and in the back of a car. He seems subdued now. A new batch of agents have come to the house and taken care of it.

Hank immediately likes her for that, and her warm demeanor. He mumbles something about them being rattled by okay.

From across the room Katie gives him a serious nod and Hank knows it’s going to be okay. Graham, sitting next to her and listening to the tall, black agent really attentively, looks spooked by not scared. 

“Thank you for saving them,” Hank says to Agent Coulson.

“You saved your family,” the man replies.

Hank gets a strange feeling whenever he looks at this man. Something he can’t place. Like a missing piece from… something.

“And you saved _him_ ,” the woman says, tilting her head in Coulson’s direction. Then she offers her hand to Hank. “Sorry, I’m Agent Skye. I’m sure you have many questions.”

“Yeah, I-”

“We will explain everything,” Coulson says.

Agent Skye cuts in.

“Mr Thompson, do you have a first aid kit in the house?”

“I’m okay,” Coulson claims.

The woman ignores him, arches her eyebrow at Hank to draw attention to the question.

Hank nods. He leads them upstairs, once he makes sure his family is taken care of (an agent called Mackenzie reassures him, and Hank thinks he seems trustworthy). 

He gets a curious, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he looks at Agent Coulson - _Coulson_ , that man had simply said - like the feeling he had forgotten something important. It’s a gut feeling, but it’s warm too, like what he forgot was a long lost friend. Or someone he met in a dream.

It’s the same feeling as when he was working on the toy train track - meeting Coulson feels as finishing the track. The agent said both things have something to do with the other, but Hank is not sure how that’s possible. All the fuss about that track… it’s just a hobby.

Once in the bathroom Agent Skye takes over quickly - in a handful of movements, like a magician’s trick, she has applied the gauze she took from Hank’s kit to Coulson’s chest, arms.

“Where did you learn all this?” Coulson asks her.

She’s focused on her tasks, and she doesn’t look at him as she moves.

“Trip,” she says. Hank doesn’t understand.

“I missed a lot. Didn’t I?” Coulson says, looking very intently at her, sounding regretful.

The woman nods slowly, finally meeting his eyes.

Hank notices the big scar on Coulson’s chest when she lifts his slashed t-shirt. It brings him back to what Derick said about trying to find Coulson but hearing he was already dead. The idea is pretty sinister but that scar… Hank watches as Agent Skye throws a dark blue jacket over Coulson’s shoulders. He mutters a silent thank you. Hank notices the logo on the jacket.

“How much blood have you lost?” she says, after a beat.

“I’m fine,” Coulson says. 

“Do you feel dizzy?”

“A bit, but I’ll get sorted out back at the base.”

Hank feels strangely left out, like agents Coulson and Skye have forgotten he’s in the room.

“I can fix you something to eat,” Hank offers, a bit annoyed, cutting in. They other two turn to him and for a moment it really looked as if they had forgotten about him.

“It won’t be necessary,” Coulson tells him, graciously. But he sounds tired. No wonder. 

“It’s not a problem, believe me,” Hank insists. “At least get some vitamin C, a juice.”

“I’m-” Coulson starts refusing him again but Agent Skye’s eyebrows shut him up.

“Mack is going to take a while photographing the blueprint. And Mr Thompson’s family has to be debriefed on the spot, we can’t take them back to the base. You should drink something.”

Coulson nods at her and then at Hank. 

“One orange juice, it is,” Hank says, turning around nervously.

He goes downstairs trying not to think too much about… well, about all of this. It sounds surreal, yet Hank knows it’s not. He knows Derick was telling the truth about it all. But he doesn’t know how to ask. He is afraid of asking. Getting an answer means everything he knew about his life hangs in a fragile balance.

Walking to the kitchen he gets a glimpse of the SHIELD agents still talking to his family. The news said SHIELD were bad guys, and then the news said they weren’t. It was confusing. But now it’s not; Hank trusts these people. He doesn’t know why - he trusts _SHIELD_. That in itself is not as reassuring as it should be! He watches the agents in his house and suddenly his very simple life - though he never thought about it as simple - seems like something out of a dream, something _to wake up from_.

No.

No, he thinks. He’s Hank Thompson. He loves his family. Anything else is irrelevant.

He pours the juice diligently, without noticing what he’s doing too much. He takes some chocolate cookies from the cupboard, just in case. Agent Coulson did look very pale. Hank feels he should do something, something _more_ for him. Like he owes him. But not for today, not for saving his family - if he hadn’t showed up who knows what Derick would have done? Or for facing their attacker as he told him to escape with his family. No, Hank has this weird feeling he owes Coulson for something else. Cookies are not going to cut it, of course, but it’s something…

He goes up the stairs again.

As he approaches he hears the agents talking and something about his voices - low, intimate, unselfconscious - stops him before he makes his presence known. He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, of course. He feels it’s just too awkward to cut their conversation short. Instead he stops by the doorframe, glass and plate in his hand.

“I’m sorry I locked you in a cell,” Hank hears Coulson say.

That’s a bit alarming.

Skye sounds very calm when she replies, but her words are a bit tight.

“Yeah, you said sorry after you did it.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I don’t think you were thinking at all,” she tells him and the voice has softened.

“Maybe I wasn’t…” Coulson agrees. “But that’s no excuse.”

There’s a silence.

“If you hadn’t come here yourself,” the young woman goes on. “Then you wouldn’t have seen the blueprint. And you wouldn’t have stopped Derick.”

Hank takes a silent step. He’s able to see part of the figures through the cracked open door, without being seen. Agent Coulson’s face turns into half a smile.

“You’re a very Big Picture kind of person, aren’t you?” he says.

Agent Skye shrugs.

“I have to be,” she says. “And hey, if pushing me inside a cell had to happen for you to come here and get well...then I’m not going to complain about a little pain in the ass.”

“I’m still sorry,” Coulson insists.

The woman places a hand on his shoulder, tentatively, as if she was afraid of causing more damage - the blood, the slashed clothes now covered by the dark blue coat - a very light touch. It looks oddly intimate. Hank feels a moment of instant and strange recognition - and wonders what kind of relationship these two, his unlikely saviors, might have.

“Thank you,” she replies.

The moment stretches, a warm feeling in Hank’s stomach, the woman’s hand still gently resting on Agent Coulson’s shoulder. 

It doesn’t last. He is discovered. Agent Skye catches him watching from the door and the hand disappears, like in shame, and she takes a couple of steps back from her colleague.

“Ah, sorry,” he says, walking into the bathroom, glass and plate in hand. 

“Cookies, aren’t you lucky?” Agent Skye says, throwing a look at Coulson.

“You can have one too,” Hank tells her.

She smiles - there’s something strangely wise about this young woman’s smile, it unsettles Hank a bit.

“Thank you, I’m on duty,” she jokes. Hank chuckles. He likes her.

“mmm chocolate,” Agent Coulson whispers in a very low voice.

It makes Hank feel good. Useful.

“Mr Coulson…” he starts. “What Derick said about you… about all of us… it was true, wasn’t it?”

The two agents exchange a look. 

“We have to talk,” Coulson admits. “But not here.”

“I’m going to go check up downstairs,” Skye tells them. “You can get started here.”

Coulson nods.

Skye turns around.

“I’ll leave him in your hands,” she says, walking around Hank to reach the bathroom’s door. She makes a strange gesture, like she is about to squeeze his arm but thinks against him for some modest reason. Instead she winks at Hank. “Like you, Agent Coulson, has had quite a day.”

She leaves, not turning towards Agent Coulson - Hank thinks she does this on purpose - and not seeing - but maybe noticing - the way Coulson looks on as she leaves, his glance on her back then on nothing then the door.


End file.
